Welcome back to the wonderful world of Commander multiplayer, as told by SUNCOM, the PRE I run every Sunday at 15:00 GMT (more info about it here). You can read about the Origin of It All in the first article of this series.
New Commander product ahoy! Almost half of the 51 new cards have been already spoiled. There's a definite group hug/political theme throughout, bringing back in force the kind of cards that say, "Don't attack me, attack someone else and I'll give you gifts!". My personal highlights, so far (which do NOT belong to the mentioned category):
The Djinn is bound to be fun. And you can also use him politically, exchanging control of stuff from an opponent to another. The black Elemental is nothing extraordinary for 8 mana, but as the black take on Verdant Force, was long due. Bane of Progress is clearly an instant staple. And the artifact, well, that text needs translation, I assume: Eye of Doom — When Eye of Doom enters the battlefield, each player chooses a nonland permanent and puts a fate counter on it. Tap, Sacrifice Eye of Doom: Destroy each permanent with a fate counter. So, reverse Oblivion Stone. Not as good, and clearly more random, but players might not have permanents that don't matter when you cast it (while you'll make sure you have a permanent whose death matters).
On top of that, there's the return of the Curses, which is nice if a bit underwhelming so far (here's I'm hoping for something big and crazy to finally exploit Bitterheart Witch), and a bunch of great new commanders/legends. But we'll analyze those in full detail next time, once they'll be all revealed.
TODAY'S COMMANDERS (click to go directly to the decklists): Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind, Hokori, Dust Drinker, Sliver Queen, Erebos, God of the Dead, Anax and Cymede.
SUNCOM 43
One of the most consistent aficionados of the event, Edison_88luckyplayer, returned to victory in SUNCOM 43, thanks to the Izzet patron himself, in his old and trusty form of the Firemind (sorry, Dracogenius, you're just not combolicious enough).
Finalist, along with Zarcron's Captain Sisay, was justcanceled with a new, fearsome deck: the game-paralyzing (and super-annoying) Hokori, Dust Drinker.
SUNCOM 44
Last week's event, new victory for raf.azevedo's Maelstrom Wanderer, while justcanceled's Hokori build ended up in the final table again, which makes it twice in a row. With them, a good player who's been there a lot of times, but I think never managed to reach the final before: Spanish nice guy doncogollo, getting there at last thanks to his shiny Sliver Queen.
Look how many combo pieces are there! I challenge you to identify the main endgame. There's Viscera Seer and Melira, there's Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood, there's Debt to the Deathless, there's Freed from the Real, there's Weird Harvest, there's Maralen of the Mornsong, there's Deadeye Navigator, there's Genesis Wave... What is really going on here?
She's the Queen of the Combos.
Other than that, I feel like we should properly welcome the Gods in SUNCOM. For instance, by featuring Gordani's Erebos, God of the Dead list.
But there's no Gods without Heroes! So here's Anax and Cymede also doing their debut in SUNCOM, courtesy of Silvos der Benny.
And that's it.
WHAT ABOUT SOME ACTION NOW?
First of all, a blast from the past. With Edison_88luckyplayer recently winning the Jackpot (along with Frenzy277), I asked him to dig out a nice table he played with during his sequence, and here's what our Taiwanese friend chose. From SUNCOM 37, a win with Nicol Bolas (which reminds us of the current, new challenge of playing with each of the five Elder Dragons: try it out, folks! The Jackpot is growing!) against _BIG_BROTHERS_ with Rhys the Redeemed, Silvos der Berry with Kresh the Bloodbraided, and Gordani with Thalia, Guardian of Thraben.
And now, remember how we had two of justcanceled's Thada tables last time, but none of them from Thada's point of view? Well, now we have that, too, with the final from SUNCOM 42 between him, _BIG_BROTHERS_ with Oona, Queen of the Fae, and Frenzy277 with Bosh, Iron Golem. Enjoy!
And that's it. See you in the SUNCOM room next Sunday at 15:00 GMT, and with the Chronicles here on PureMTGO in two weeks! Commander ho!
7 Comments
Sadly, Commander 2013 product doesn't get onto MTGO until December 20! Kind of a long wait but I assume they're testing things out to work out the bugs. Oh well.
It's kind of weird that a product born out of MTGO will have to take back seat to paper. But at least it'll be a Christmas gift!
Was it born out of MTGO?
Commander was originally the online implementation of Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH), which is now apparently obsolete. Commander, being an online format originally, is slightly different than EDH, just like online 2HG is slightly different from paper 2HG.
So yeah. It's weird that the online release of a product originally designed for online play is being delayed for the paper release. Go figure. But par for the course.
That is an interesting interpretation of events. The name is indeed from the online version of the format however part of the reason the paper version is no longer called Elder Dragon Highlander is both versions were merged under the purview of the committee that wrote and maintained the paper version rules. While the name is more streamlined than the original, for ease of use, the games played online and off are identical afaik. IE: Commander online is a copy of the offline rules (sans house rules which have not been implemented yet (and bugs))
I don't see it as weird at all but then again maybe I'm the oddball. However there is a strangeness in the naming of the set. 2013 does technically end after December but that is very very last minute to call it a commander 2013 product. And that does cause some dissonance. A better name might have been The End of 2013 Commander release. :p
I get what you're saying, it's correct in both ways, but Commander (Commander, not EDH) was considered by WotC even in official pages an "online format" and listed among the "MTGO formats" for a long time. There hasn't been any paper release for EDH until Commander became popular on MTGO. When the first Commander product was released, it was commented as "Commander jumps into the paper world".
But, mind you, if now it's just one of the supported formats, and undergoes the same releasing rules of any other format, that's actually a good thing. (Probably marketing-oriented: "What's this?" "It's that format they play on MTGO" "Ugh, who cares about MTGO, not interested." <<< This isn't what they want to happen.)
The name is, in fact, absurd. Shouldn't it follow the rule of the core set? We had Magic 2014, and a few months later, a 2013 product? (This said, the core sets actually have validity over a restricted amount of time, while Commander 2013 doesn't really care which year it is.)
Well but actually the commander sets are now only out for 1 year before they cycle. So Commander 2014 would make perfect sense.